to find it, impotently slow.
I know, strong Fate, the trodden way I go.
Joy lies behind me. Be the journey brief.


XXVII

Sleep hath composed the anguish of my brain,
And ere the dawn I will arise and pray.
Strengthen me, Heaven, and attune my lay
Unto my better angel's clear refrain.
For I can hear him in the night again,
The breathless night, snow-smothered, happy, grey,
With premonition of the jocund day,
Singing a quiet carol to my pain.
Slowly, saith he, the April buds are growing
In the chill core of twigs all leafless now;
Gently, beneath the weight of last night's snowing,
Patient of winter's hand, the branches bow.
Each buried seed lacks light as much as thou.
Wait for the spring, brave heart; there is no knowing.

XXVIII

Out of the dust the queen of roses springs;
The brackish depths of the blown waters bear
Blossoms of foam; the common mist and air
Weave Vesper's holy, pity-laden wings.
So from sad, mortal, and unhallowed things
Bud stars that in their crowns the angels wear;
And worship of the infinitely fair
Flows from thine eyes, as wise Petrarca sings:
"Hence comes the understanding of love's scope,
That, seeking thee, to perfect good aspires,
Accounting little what all flesh desires;
And hence the spirit's happy pinions ope
In flight impetuous to the heaven's choirs:
Wherefore I walk already proud in hope."

XXIX

What riches have you that you deem me poor,
Or what large comfort that you call me sad?
Tell me what makes you so exceeding glad:
Is your earth happy or your heaven sure?
I hope for heaven, since the stars endure
And bring such tidings as our fathers had.
I know no deeper doubt to make me mad,
I need no brighter love to keep me pure.
To me the faiths of old are daily bread;
I bless their hope, I bless their will to save,
And my deep heart still meaneth what they said.
It makes me happy that the soul is brave,
And, being so much kinsman to the dead,
I walk contented to the peopled grave.

XXX

Let my lips touch thy lips, and my desire
Contagious fever be, to set a-glow
The blood beneath thy whiter breast than snow—
Wonderful snow, that so can kindle fire!
Abandon to what gods in us conspire
Thy little wisdom, sweetest; for they know.
Is it not something that I love thee so?
Take that from life, ere death thine all require.
But no! Then would a mortal warmth disperse
That beauteous snow to water-drops, which, turned
To marble, had escaped the primal curse.
Be still a goddess, till my heart have burned
Its sacrifice before thee, and my verse
Told this late world the love that I have learned.

XXXI

A brother's love, but that I chose thee out
From all the world, not by the chance of birth,
But in the risen splendour of thy worth,
Which, like the sun, put all my stars to rout.
A lover's love, but that it bred no doubt
Of love returned, no heats of flood and dearth,
But, asking nothing, found in all the earth
The consolation of a heart devout.
A votary's love, though with no pale and wild
Imaginations did I stretch the might
Of a sweet friendship and a mortal light.
Thus in my love all loves are reconciled
That purest be, and in my prayer the right
Of brother, lover, friend, and eremite.

XXXII

Let not thy bosom, to my foes allied,
Insult my sorrow with this coat of mail,
When for thy strong defence, if love assail,
Thou hast the world, thy virtue, and my pride.
But if thine own dear eyes I see beside
Sharpened against me, then my strength will fail,
Abandoning sail and rudder to the gale
For thy sweet sake alone so long defied.
If I am poor, in death how rich and brave
Will seem my spirit with the love it gave;
If I am sad, I shall seem happy then.
Be mine, be mine in God and in the grave,
Since naught but chance and the insensate wave
Divides us, and the wagging tongue of men.

XXXIII

A perfect love is nourished by despair.
I am thy pupil in the school of pain;
Mine eyes will not reproach thee for disdain,
But thank thy rich disdain for being fair.
Aye! the proud sorrow, the eternal prayer
Thy beauty taught, what shall unteach again?
Hid from my sight, thou livest in my brain;
Fled from my bosom, thou abidest there.
And though they buried thee, and called thee dead,
And told me I should never see thee more,
The violets that grew above thy head
Would waft thy breath and tell thy sweetness o'er,
And every rose thy scattered ashes bred
Would to my sense thy loveliness restore.

XXXIV

Though destiny half broke her cruel bars,
Herself contriving we should meet on earth,
And with thy beauty fed my spirit's dearth
And tuned to love the ages' many jars,
Yet there is potency in natal stars;
And we were far divided in our birth
By nature's gifts and half the planet's girth,
And speech, and faith, and blood, and ancient wars.
Alas! thy very radiance made division,
Thy youth, thy friends, and all men's eyes that wooed
Thy simple kindness came as in derision
Of so much love and so much solitude;
Or did the good gods order all to show
How far the single strength of love can go?

XXXV

We needs must be divided in the tomb,
For I would die among the hills of Spain,
And o'er the treeless melancholy plain
Await the coming of the final gloom.
But thou—O pitiful!—wilt find scant room
Among thy kindred by the northern main,
And fade into the drifting mist again,
The hemlocks' shadow, or the pines' perfume.
Let gallants lie beside their ladies' dust,
In one cold grave, with mortal love inurned;
Let the sea part our ashes, if it must.
The souls fled thence which love immortal burned,
For they were wedded without bond of lust,
And nothing of our heart to earth returned.

XXXVI

We were together, and I longed to tell
How drop by silent drop my bosom bled.
I took some verses full of you, and read,
Waiting for God to work some miracle.
They told how love had plunged in burning hell
One half my soul, while the other half had fled
Upon love's wings to heaven; and you said:
"I like the verses; they are written well."
If I had knelt confessing "It is you,
You are my torment and my rapture too,"
I should have seen you rise in flushed disdain:
"For shame to say so, be it false or true!"
And the sharp sword that ran me through and through,
On your white bosom too had left a stain.

XXXVII

And I was silent. Now you do not know,
But read these very words with vacant eyes,
And, as you turn the page, peruse the skies,
And I go by you as a cloud might go.
You are not cruel, though you dealt the blow,
And I am happy, though I miss the prize;
For, when God tells you, you will not despise
The love I bore you. It is better so.
My soul is just, and thine without a stain.
Why should not life divide us, whose division
Is frail and passing, as its union vain?
All things 'neath other planets will grow plain
When, as we wander through the fields Elysian,
Eternal echoes haunt us of this pain.

XXXVIII

Oh, not for me, for thee, dear God, her head
Shines with this perfect golden aureole,
For thee this sweetness doth possess her soul,
And to thy chambers are her footsteps led.
The light will live that on my path she shed,
While any pilgrim yet hath any goal,
And heavenly musicians from their scroll
Will sing all her sweet words, when I am dead.
In her unspotted